


Character Ability: Revival

by engine



Series: Somniari [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Blood and Injury, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Near Death Experiences, gansey is also there, typical dragon age violence but not as bad as it could be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engine/pseuds/engine
Summary: Crickets.Crickets and the crackling of a fire, slightly scratchy blankets, and a strange ache across half his chest. Ronan’s eyes felt glued shut; his mouth was bone dry; his limbs felt weaker than they had in years, like he was still a kid waking up from his dreams exhausted and terrified as he fled from demons.He was also pretty sure he’d died.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: Somniari [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1841743
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	Character Ability: Revival

**Author's Note:**

> everyone who wanted a sequel: here you go! i started writing this like immediately after finishing the other one, and i have more ideas, so this series might continue to grow. we’ll see! i hope you enjoy. :)

Ronan heard Gansey shout for him to watch out a moment before he felt any actual pain. The fake prophet dug her claws into his armor, into his flesh, and for a full minute Ronan couldn’t process what was happening. This close, sprawled on the ground beneath the giant dragon, Ronan could only act. His spirit blade coalesced in his hands, sliding between the softer scales on the dragon’s stomach. Hot blood poured onto him, and more blood—his own blood—seeped through his armor.

The dragon shrieked, claws digging deeper into Ronan. He felt it now, excruciating pain, his vision going dark around the edges, but he managed to focus just enough to draw on the last reserves of his magic. With effort, he sent out the energy in a powerful blast, ripping the dragon’s claws from his skin, sending it flying off to the side. He tried to push himself up, but he didn’t have the strength; his spirit blade faded from his hands as he collapsed back onto the rocky ground. Above him, the sky was dark, cloudy, promising rain. 

Vibrations rocked the ground as the dragon finally collapsed, though Ronan hadn’t seen who killed it. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. The pain was too much. He couldn’t—

“ _Ronan_!” Adam shouted, his boots sending pieces of rock skittering off in every direction. Ronan felt it when Adam slid to his knees next to him, felt Adam’s hands on his armor, felt the healing magic trying, _trying_ … “Ronan, _please,_ oh Maker—”

It worked enough that Ronan opened his eyes, could turn his head enough to look at Adam. He’d never heard Adam’s voice shake like that, and wished he wasn’t hearing it now. 

“Is he—?” Blue asked, and “It’s bad,” Noah said, so softly Ronan almost missed it.

“Can we do anything?” Gansey said, somewhere behind Ronan, out of sight. 

“ _No_ , there’s nothing—It’s not _working_ , I can’t—” Adam’s voice cracked, and Ronan coughed, feeling blood bubbling in his lungs. Bad. That was surely very bad. “I’m not strong enough, not after—”

Not after keeping them alive through a fight with a mature dragon. Magic only went so far, even with lyrium, when your body was exhausted. Ronan had reached that point more times than he could count, throwing fireballs at boulders until he was too tired to enter the Fade in his dreams. He knew what it meant when Adam said _I can’t_.

“Sorry,” Ronan managed, coughing again. If there was ever a time to apologize, it was probably now. “Don’t think saying something will help, this time.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Adam snapped, his hands on Ronan’s shoulders, on his face; Ronan could feel them trembling. “I told you,” he continued, quiet and fierce, “I’m capable of casting more spells.”

Ronan looked at him, wincing as he felt another feeble surge of healing magic trying to knit his organs back together. Any longer, and Adam would burn out, hurt himself trying to push past his limits. He couldn’t watch that happen. “Adam, stop,” he said, moving his hand just enough to touch his fingers to Adam’s knee. “Stop.”

“Adam?” Gansey asked, but his voice sounded distant now. Sound around him fell away; he felt Adam’s hands move off him, but he couldn’t keep track of anything anymore. He was— 

“Adam, what’s—”

“Are you _crazy?”_

“That's too dangerous! What if—”

“It’s fine,” Adam said, voice strangely calm and resonant across the mountaintop. “I know what I’m doing.”

-

Crickets. 

Crickets and the crackling of a fire, slightly scratchy blankets, and a strange ache across half his chest. Ronan’s eyes felt glued shut; his mouth was bone dry; his limbs felt weaker than they had in years, like he was still a kid waking up from his dreams exhausted and terrified as he fled from demons. 

He was also pretty sure he’d died. 

Or, as close to death as he could possibly get. It got fuzzy at the end there, as he’d slipped in and out of consciousness. He remembered Gansey yelling something, Noah and Blue’s worry, and then Adam had—

“Ronan?” Adam asked, his voice soft. Ronan felt a hand on his cheek, thumb brushing the delicate skin below his eye.

“Yeah,” Ronan croaked, feeling like he hadn’t spoken in days. Well, maybe he hadn’t. He cracked open one eye to peer up at Adam, who seemed perfectly calm and unsurprised where he leaned over Ronan. “Water?”

“If you can sit up,” Adam said. Ronan made a face, all too aware of his lingering wounds, but he managed, with Adam’s help, to sit up enough to drink some water from his flask. Adam put an unused bedroll behind him so he could lean back without laying down, and for the first time in years, Ronan wished for his bed back at the Lynch Manor in Kirkwall. The ground was unforgiving. 

“What happened?” he asked, passing the flask back to Adam, who pointedly didn’t make eye contact. Clearly Adam knew he wasn’t asking about the dragon. After a moment where Adam, sitting cross legged next to Ronan, simply tapped his fingers against the book in his lap, Ronan reached over to wrap a hand around his slender wrist. The tapping stopped, but Adam still wasn’t looking at him. His dark circles were worse than usual, the way he’d looked when they’d first met him behind the locked doors of Kinloch Hold, stretched to his limit protecting the few survivors.

“Adam,” Ronan tried again. “What _happened_?”

“I needed more power,” Adam said, finally looking at Ronan. His expression was distant, closed off, but he held out his left hand for Ronan to see a mostly healed cut on his palm. “There wasn’t any other choice.”

The missing pieces fell together, an explanation for the snatches of conversation Ronan had heard in those last moments. 

“I’m sure Gansey loved that,” he said, running his thumb across the scar. Despite not being raised in a Circle, Ronan had learned from his parents and the Chant of Light how exactly magic should be, or was expected to be, used. Blood magic was said to be unequivocally evil—but the Circle would’ve made Ronan tranquil if given the chance, for no reason other than his potential, so what did they know about evil? Ronan had seen apostates boil a man from the inside and _laugh_ ; blood was no more likely to mark a mage as evil than a dagger in the hands of a soldier. 

“He’s still a templar,” Adam said, even though Gansey wasn’t. Some lessons were hard to shake. “But you were—Ronan, nothing was _working_. I couldn’t—If I hadn’t done it, you would’ve—It was my own blood, anyway, I’d never—”

“Hey,” Ronan said, pushing himself back up into a sitting position, still holding Adam’s hand between both of his. “You think I give a shit about any of that?”

“You follow the Chant,” Adam said defensively, but fingers curled around Ronan’s. “You saw what the Tower was like.”

“And you’re not a fucking power hungry dumbass.” Ronan thought this was self-evident. Adam was the smartest person he knew. “I trust you.”

Adam stared down at their hands, then at what remained of Ronan’s wounds. Despite the phantom ache, only slight scars remained, pink against his pale skin. Incredible what a bit of blood could do. Finally Adam looked up at Ronan, eyebrows drawn together, eyes wide. The small lantern illuminating the space glowed with the eerie blue of veilfire, casting Adam’s features in stark relief. 

“You were dying,” he said quietly, as if by putting it into words, if something heard them, it might still happen. “You were dying, and I had to do something. I _had_ to.”

Ronan let go of Adam’s hand, reaching up for his face. He traced the lines of Adam’s cheekbones with his thumbs, and then leaned in to kiss him.

Adam kissed him back immediately; his hands wrapped around Ronan’s wrists, holding him in place, and Ronan felt him shudder, tension finally bleeding from his body. It was barely more than chaste—a firm press of lips, a confirmation that Ronan was here and alive, that Adam wanted Ronan as badly as Ronan wanted him. Ronan pulled back just enough to look at Adam, at the way he still looked so sad. Before he could say anything, Adam leaned in to kiss him again, just on the edge of desperate. The book fell off his lap onto the ground as Adam pressed closer, his fingers still tight around Ronan’s wrists, refusing to let him go. 

“You still need to rest,” Adam said when they finally broke apart to catch their breath. Even in the dim, flickering light, Ronan could see the flush staining Adam’s cheeks.

“Your book’s gonna get creased,” Ronan said, glancing over at where Adam’s book had collapsed, forgotten, half open.

“I love you,” Adam said, possibly related to the book, or possibly not. He let go of Ronan just long enough to fix the book and set it aside. “I _love_ you,” he repeated, wrapping his arms around Ronan’s shoulders and leaning their foreheads together. “So you can't die, alright?”

When he and Gansey had first met Adam in the Circle tower, he’d been distant and aloof and so beautiful that for a moment Ronan hadn’t been able to breathe. He’d seemed so untouchable: smart and skilled and certainly not interested in someone like Ronan. Weeks and weeks of traveling together, fighting together, Ronan watching and, finally, Adam looking back—it still hardly seemed real, to have Adam like this, in his arms, saying these things. 

“I promise,” Ronan said, knowing that wasn’t really a promise he could keep. He kissed Adam again, soft and careful, trying not to think about the Darkspawn, or the Archdemon, or the inevitable song that would haunt him if he somehow managed to survive the Blight. Adam held onto him, fingers digging into his skin, and Ronan wondered if he was thinking the same things.

Finally, Adam’s grip loosened and he sat back, a soft smile just beginning in the corners of his mouth. He trailed one hand across the largest scar on Ronan’s chest, sighed, and nudged him away. “Like I said, you need to rest. The worst of it’s healed but your body still went into shock,” he said, reaching over to grab his book. “And I need to tell Gansey you woke up. He’s keeping watch.”

Ronan made a face, slowly releasing his hold on Adam; accurately guessing what the issue was, Adam’s smiled widened, bright and pleased, and he leaned back in to kiss Ronan quickly, one last time. “I’ll come right back.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Ronan said, collapsing back onto the bedroll. He watched as Adam stood up and left the tent, then closed his eyes and listened to the muffled sound of his and Gansey’s voices. The ache where his injuries had been added to his exhaustion, and as much as he wanted to stay awake, he knew he’d be asleep before Adam returned.

-

Gansey had been staring into the fire when Adam left the tent, but at the sound of moving fabric he immediately looked up, alert. Cold wind blew across the mountaintop, seeping between the cracks of his armor, but he hadn’t wanted to move Ronan too much, until they’d had proof that Adam’s magic had worked. They’d moved only to the other side of the peak, away from the corpse of the dragon, and that’s where they’d been for two full days. He’d barely slept the night before; he wasn’t sure Adam had slept at all.

“He’s awake,” Adam said once he was close enough to be heard over the wind and the fire. He clutched a book to his chest like protective armor, but Gansey could see the relief on his face. “We should be able to leave in the morning.”

Now relief coursed through Gansey, too, so overwhelming he leaned over, head in his hands, taking a moment just to breathe. He hadn’t let himself feel the depth of his fear for Ronan until now, the danger passed, and he felt nauseated and a little shaky with it. Adam put a hand on his shoulder without saying a word, until Gansey felt like he had it under control. 

“Thank you,” Gansey said, sitting back up; Adam’s hand fell away. “I know I wasn’t—supportive. Of what you did. But I’m not upset that you did it.” If he closed his eyes, he could still see Adam slicing his palm open with a dagger; the way his blood had floated, sacrificial; the bright blue light of what could only be a spirit coming to Adam’s aid. In the moment, Gansey had only been able to wonder if he’d lose two friends in one day.

“I know.” Adam shifted his weight, apprehension on his face. “If there’d been another way—but I couldn’t…” He took a shaky breath. “I can’t lose him, Gansey. Not yet.”

Gansey blinked up at him. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Adam would do what he could to save any of them, if they’d been the ones on death’s door, but something about the _way_ Adam said it seemed different. Something in the worried look on his face, the way his fingers looked like claws on the book in his arms. 

A few things shifted; Gansey nodded, understanding, and Adam sighed. He wanted to ask more, but stopped himself, deciding to wait until Ronan had fully recovered. 

“You should try and sleep,” Gansey said, tilting his head back in the direction of the tent. Adam’s cheeks went slightly pink, at the insinuation, and Gansey grinned. “Noah and I can keep watch for the rest of the night.”

“Make Ronan do it tomorrow as payback for almost dying,” Adam said, turning back towards the tent to hide his expression, and what a relief it was that he could even joke about that. 

Gansey looked up at the night sky, still smiling, unable to stop. For now, his friends were alive and happy; he couldn’t ask for anything more than that. 

-

Ronan had fallen asleep by the time Adam ducked back into the tent, his features soft and relaxed. He hadn't pulled up his blanket which meant Adam could immediately see the new constellation of scars across Ronan’s chest, shoulder, and ribs. The veilfire highlighted the raised skin as if taunting Adam about his failures. 

Because it _was_ his failure—if he’d seen the dragon’s attack sooner, or if he’d saved some of his strength for an emergency spell—

He sighed. Those thoughts would eat him alive, if he let them. 

Not that his other thoughts were better, exactly. Just different. The freckles on Ronan’s pale skin were similarly distracting.

He placed his book beside his pack and shrugged off his jacket, then slid off his boots as well. The veilfire extinguished with a wave of his hand, and he settled on his bedroll beside Ronan. There were more things he should’ve told Gansey, and certainly more he should’ve told Ronan—Ronan, at least, would figure it out eventually, no matter how careful Adam was. Before, Adam wouldn’t have said the Spirit of Mercy who watched over him was _possessing_ him, exactly, though it certainly _protected_ him and even helped him over the years. But now he felt… different. It was difficult to explain.

Reaching out in the darkness, Adam found Ronan’s hand and laced their fingers together, feeling Ronan’s heartbeat strong and alive beneath his skin. Was that the spirit, or the blood magic? Adam didn’t know. He didn’t really care, either; it was more comforting than he might have expected only a few days prior. Finally he closed his eyes, the exhaustion of the past two days sinking in.

 _He’s alive_ , Adam thought, or maybe Mercy thought, or maybe there wasn’t a difference anymore. _We saved him. He’s alive_.


End file.
